Teacher/Student/Parent
Barbara Kreader, Editor
Group teaching takes special skills. I rediscovered this fact last Fall when I began teaching Music Together, a program for infants, toddlers, and their caregivers. True, I had taught regular third and first grade sometime during the Dark Ages of my 20s, but time passes and memories fade. I distinctly remember feeling confident about teaching a group of young children. I know I enjoyed the fast-paced action, challenge, and interchange only a group can provide.
Yet thirty-eight years later I found myself faced with a room full of 12 toddlers between the ages of one and three and their 10 mothers and caregivers. I had prepared for the forty-five minute class for over eight hours, not counting the three intense days of training I had attended the previous summer. I drove around singing "Shenandoah," and "A Ram Sam Sam" as it blared from my car's tape deck and mapped out toddler choreography and orchestration ideas for the "instrument-play" songs. I arrived an hour early to set up the room and review my lesson plan.
The class participants drifted into the room to the strains of The "Goldberg" Variations, background music designed to get everyone in the mood for our upcoming musical time together. As I headed to the piano to begin the "Hello Song," two of the mothers began to fight. One of the children had a noticeable cold and had licked one of the drums; another mother had rolled her eyes in horror, offending the under-the-weather child's mother. Despite my assurance that the drum would be wiped with the alcohol available on a nearby table, the mothers continued their disagreement in an extremely "young" manner. Remembering what it was like to haul toddlers around, and knowing how exhaustion can revert any sane parent to the toddler level in seconds, I tried to be compassionate to the women while trying to work things out. Yet class hadn't even started!
Fortunately, the rest of the class went well, and over the next four weeks the group teaching became easier. Once I connected to each child, I was hooked: Julia the organizer, Haley the socialite, Will the worrier, Henry the roamer, Megan the dancer, Billy the intellectual, Eamon the drummer, and Alex the observer. After many more hours of practice, I can now sing and drum and dance to all the songs - 14 different ones each session - and the class and I have found a way of working together that is fun, yet challenging. Even so, the work takes its toll on my 57-year old body. After I spend a half hour cleaning up after the class, I leave, fix myself a nice lunch and take a nap before my private lesson day begins at three.
Is teaching the group worth it? Absolutely! One-on-one teaching would never create these moments: Megan and Julia lying side-by-side during the lullaby, singing the song in unison; chronically unhappy Henry drying his eyes, grabbing a resonator bell and playing along with the group; sunny Eamon singing "woooooooo" in tune with the music, using his whole body to express his delight. Last week, Mariam began to scream after class. Nothing her mother did seemed to comfort her. When I came to inquire about her distress, Mariam looked at me and through her tears, blubbered, "I don't want to go home!"
Group teaching.
I am sold!
from Jan Holter's article
Group teaching - the route to greater musical and financial rewards
I decided to make the switch from private to group lessons in 1992 after attending a Mayron Cole group teaching seminar. Digital pianos, sound modules, and sequencers had newly hit the market. I immediately fell in love with the equipment and the possibilities it offered for making music more fun than it already was. The investment of time, money, and energy is great, but, in my experience, group teaching eventually brings greater musical and financial rewards.
Some advantages of group teaching
My studio brochure states some of the proven advantages of group lessons:
I began teaching group lessons with five pianos, so each group had two to five students, however I could fit them together. I was fortunate to have a music dealer eager to put digital pianos into my studio as a way of advertising his products. I purchased a Roland and the dealer placed four more digital pianos in my studio for free the first year with the idea that they were for sale to my students. My current equipment includes:
88 keys: Yamaha CVP-107
Roland HP 557R
Yamaha 6'3"
Kurzweil PC88-MX
76 keys: Yamaha DGX-202 Portable Grands (2)
61 keys: Yamaha PSR 350 (4) . . .
Jan Holter. NCTM, lives in Waukesha, Wisconsin and has taught piano for 33 years. She is also Director of Music for Divine Shepherd Lutheran Church. Mrs. Holter graduated from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota in 1963 with a degree in music and church vocations and sang in the Concordia Choir directed by Paul Christiansen. She and her husband, Carl, have three children and six grandchildren.
from Tina Starck's article
A parent's perspective of group piano study
When I set out to find a piano teacher for my daughters, I had not heard of group piano lessons. I checked out some music stores that offered lessons, and although I thought they would do a good job, they seemed too businesslike to me. The children were taught in "studios," which were merely sterile, soundproofed cubicles. I wanted a setting in which my children would feel comfortable, and I wanted them to have a teacher who genuinely cared for them. I asked a friend at work for a recommendation and she suggested Jan Holter.
I soon found out that many children who attended my children's school were also Mrs. Holter's students. My girls, Emily and Laura, and I sat in on a lesson, and we were sold. I was impressed with the studio itself. It was homey, but definitely featured a music theme. My children felt instantly at home.
Lesson atmosphere
Because Emily and Laura learn with other children, they do not feel the pressure of having all eyes on them. It they make a mistake, it is not as noticeable to other students. Because all the children in the group are evenly matched, no one minds if someone makes a mistake, because they all do at some time or another and Mrs. Holter corrects them in a positive manner. The children also encourage and praise one another. The atmosphere is one of fun. I couldn't imagine my children taking lessons in any other setting. . .
Tina Starck works as a Kindergarten Teacher's Aide at St. Mary's School in Waukesha, WI where she lives with her husband, Peter, and their daughters, Emily, 11, who attends St. Joseph's School, and Laura, who attends St. Mary's.
Another parent testimonial, by Susan Tehan
A parent's perspective of group piano study
Jan Holter originally introduced me to the idea of group lessons, and I thought they sounded exciting and innovative. I spoke with my husband and he agreed, so we decided to give them a try. We have had no regrets!
Scheduling has never been a problem. Year after year for the past eight years, Jan has always made scheduling easy. She is extremely well-organized and accommodating. Jan's schedule for our children's piano lesson time has always been the time we wanted.
I think students who study in groups may actually practice more, because they do not want to go to lessons unprepared in front of the whole class. That could be embarrassing! We love group lessons and have had no reservations whatsoever. . .
Susan Tehan is a teacher's math and reading aide for first and second grades at Pleasant Hill Elementary School in Waukesha, WI where she also substitute teaches grades K-8 in the Waukesha School District. She lives with her husband, John, and their children, Lauren, a Freshman at Waukesha West High School, Sean, a seventh grader at Horning Middle School, and Nick, a fifth grader at Heyer Elementary School.
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